Day tripping in the Irish countryside - We thoroughly enjoyed this trip. The guide was informative and receptive to questions along the way. Her driving was excellent especially along the narrow winding roads on parts of our trip.

Great Tour, even better example of humanity - Tour was fantastic, our guide Ian was beyond knowledgeable and made the trip so much fun. He also deserves recognition for rescuing a lost hiker he saw stranded on the side of the motorway. The lady and her dog had gotten lost in the woods and wandered miles off course to the edge of the motorway. Ian spotted her in distress, retrieved her from the side of the road and returned her to her car just before darkness set in. Then he turned the detour into an impromptu tour stop to see an old church and Celtic high cross he knew of in the town. The day was both a wonderful tour and a wonderful illustration of genuine humanity, Ian (and Paddywagon) get 5 stars on both accounts.

Views - The lake was in grand. So tranquil & divine! The Kilkenny castle was quite brilliant as well! St Mary’s church was beautiful, if you get the chance it’s worth a visit

A very enjoyable day tour with some wonderful highlights! - Overall, a very enjoyable day tour with some wonderful highlights! The pick-up point was easy to find, and the tour was well-organized. The driver was professional, and the commentary was both informative and engaging. 🚌 One of the best moments was when we ran into a flock of sheep 🐑 in the mountains—a delightful surprise amidst the beautiful scenery. 🌄 While the time in Kilkenny was nice, I would have preferred to take full advantage of the extra time we gained by staying an additional 15 minutes. ⏳ It was a great experience exploring Ireland's stunning landscapes! 🍀

Great tour - The Trip was very enjoyable and the visit to Glendalough was spectacularly beautiful and peaceful. The Trip through the Wicklow Mountains also spectacular. Kilkenny City was very interesting and really enjoyed tour of the castle. Our Tour Guide was exceptionally helpful, knowledgeable and entertaining

Great tour - Wonderful tour had a great time sight seeing the Kilkenny Castle and city. The guide was very knowledgeable and informative.

Friendly tour guide - Myself and my friend had an excellent time on our day tour, lead by Ian. The tour company generally was very easy to book through and the staff very friendly. We did really like our tour guide, he was funny and taught us lots of interesting facts! The locations visited in this tour were outstanding and beautiful. There were only 8 of us on the tour, meaning that we had a small coach and I liked that. It was fun, we felt well looked after.

Even in the rain… - Truly a remarkable tour … well worth it… even though it rained. Ruins are well worth seeing. Very comfortable ride.

Worthwhile tours to Kilkenny and Wicklow/Glendaough (with caveats) - I and my two, young adult daughters took the nine-hour day tour from Dublin (bus boarding began at 8 am near the Spire on O'Connell Street). The bus was clean and comfortable. Caveat: there are no toilets on board. The tour essentially began on time, and our driver J.J. (John James) was clearly in his element. He is a confident driver, and he has the gift of gab. Caveat: J.J. was occasionally salty in his language such as when he taught us tourists how to say "Kiss my ass" in Irish Gaelic. He also spun another story in which he admitted to once losing his temper with a female driver and calling her a C-U-Next-Tuesday. That one made me squirm a bit. My party thoroughly enjoyed the town of Kilkenny and the ancient monastic ruins of Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains. These two destinations are just brilliant, and we all want to return one day. Caveat: The tours were unguided. Upon arrival at the respective locations, our driver J.J. simply gave us a time at which we all needed to be back at the bus. Personally, I enjoyed the freedom of wandering wherever I wished to go, but with that freedom comes responsibility. It is up to respective passengers to keep track of the time and to return promptly to the bus so as not to inconvenience others with delays. I heard at least one fellow passenger say that she felt stressed out because she had been worried about being late, and yes, I understood exactly what she meant. During our daytrip, I was the timekeeper for my party, and I felt the pressure. Guided tours mean that visitors are always together in a group, and there is no serious concern about being late to return to the bus. The downside to that is the lack of freedom. You will have to decide which arrangement you prefer. There was one aspect about the tour that I found notably unpleasant, and that was the surprising manifestation of some soft, anti-Catholic bigotry. Our driver J.J. shared some of his personal story with us, and it was clear that he had had both a difficult upbringing as well as some unhappy religious experiences that have resulted in what I call "church trauma". (I've experienced my own version of church trauma on account of imperious family members. I could relate to our driver's stories.) Nevertheless, despite his generally negative attitude towards religion, J.J. firmly aligned himself with Protestantism, and that is absolutely fine. No complaint on that account. The complaint came when his alignment with Protestantism provoked him to belittle Catholicism which, despite my own church trauma, is the religion with which I align. Before disembarking to see Kilkenny, our driver made a number of recommendations of places to see, including St. Canice's Cathedral (originally Catholic, but now Protestant). And indeed, we paid the place a visit and were rewarded with some lovely sights. But mystifyingly, J.J. said not one word about St. Mary's Cathedral which has a bell tower that absolutely dominates the city skyline. It is so spectacular, we imagined that it was St. Canice's. We were wrong. It was during our tour of St. Canice's that a parish receptionist explained that we were looking at the Catholic Cathedral. She kindly gave us directions there. We visited St. Mary's, and honestly, it was more of a visual treat than St. Canice's was. If you visit Kilkenny, don't miss visiting this spectacular building. Back at the bus, I mentioned to J.J. that we had seen St. Mary's. His immediate response, delivered in a decidedly negative tone, was, "But that's the Catholic Cathedral." My impression was that he had declined to recommend St. Mary's to his bus tourists because the church is Catholic. To me, a beautiful building is a beautiful building. We were there to see historic and gorgeous architecture, regardless of religious affiliation. At that point, my girls shared that we are Catholic, which I kind of wish they had not done. I really had not wanted to go down that rabbit hole, but down we went anyway. In an effort to diffuse the tense situation, I remarked, "Somebody has to be Catholic." J.J.'s reply was, "Somebody has to be wrong." He was half joking and half serious. Ugh. How unpleasant. Ultimately, at the end of the trip, I chose to tip our driver with a 20 euro bill because he was a good driver who got us around on time and in safety. That is certainly worth something. I just wish the whole business concerning religion had never come up. I would have given the tour a five star review otherwise.

Big Disappointment - Leaving Dublin right on time as planned. The driver started talking about road closures and likelihood of not going to be able to drop us off where he picked us up from. We were promised a professional guide, at Glendalough we were just dropped off to wander off. We're told time to reassemble and straight to Kilkenny. While we were also told that Kilkenny was also self guided tour. It felt more like hiring a bus to drop us to where we were heading rather than a guided tour as promised. The last straw was carrying out initial plan of not dropping anyone of us from the pickup point despite a free road. We all were dropped off on the road by the quay. I and my friend could have driven down if we knew that it would be such a disaster. Afterall I parked my car at Rotunda car park thinking I was in for a tour.